5 - Working with Commands

Question 1

what are commands?

Answer 1

executable programs, shell builtins, shell functions or aliases

Question 2

executable programs

Answer 2

programs written in scripting languages or compiles binaries

Question 3

shell builtins

Answer 3

commands supported by the shell internally

Question 4

shell functions

Answer 4

miniature shell scripts incorporated into the environment

Question 5

alias

Answer 5

commands built from other commands

Question 6

type (command)

Answer 6

displays command type

Question 7

which (command)

Answer 7

displays the location of executables

Question 8

man (command)

Answer 8

special paging program used to view cmd documentation
*divided into 8 sections
*covers user/sysadmin commands, programming interfaces, file formats

Question 9

apropos

Answer 9

displays appearances of a search term in man pages

Question 10

whatis

Answer 10

displays one-line man page descriptions of a given term

Question 11

info

Answer 11

GNU alt to man
*reader program displaying documentation - reads info files (tree structured into nodes)
*info pages are hyperlinked

Question 12

zless

Answer 12

version of less displaying contents of gzip compressed files

Question 13

how to create an alias

Answer 13

alias name=’string’

Question 14

alias (command/no arguments)

Answer 14

displays all aliases defined in the environment